I’m excited to announce my new project: Pit Witch. This project will be my solo music and sound creations with a focus on ambient, experimental electronic, EDM, global trance, electronic jazz, and spatial genres. The project will be under the Open Ocean Studios label, which is my recording studio here in Santa Barbara CA.
For my first release, I bring you “Flipping the Sand”. This song has technically been 13 years in the making, because it’s about the time I’ve spent with my good friend Christ Esten going to see the band Phish on New Years Eve starting in 2010 (more on that below). I wrote this as a show of my love and friendship for Christian since our experiences together have inspired so much in me to create art and music. The lyrics to the song are here and will make sense once you know a little more about what Phish does for NYE shows:
“Flipping the Sand”
Bring a gold compass to abide
The source of nature is rooted inside
Take it all in and give it all out
Bring a Winnebago to a campout
The major obstacle at every stage in the path of enlightenment is in our own thoughts
Thoughts keep us separate, even the thought of unity is far different from unity
The thoughts keep coming, each one making it’s bid for our attention and identification
The world swings around once more
You heard the flock to the golden shores
Dancing around a flying street meat
We pray good deeds to a ball
Show my shadow to help me evolve
My obsession with seeing phish NYE shows started because of their ‘musical gag’ that they performed in 2010; Phish has a song called “Meatstick” which is arguably about the bass player’s (Mike Gordon) fight to remain a vegetarian while on tour in Europe (or Japan, I can’t remember). There’s a famous chorus reprise in this song after the jam that features the lyrics of the chorus in Japanese.
Building on this theme, Phish had groups of people come out on stage dressed as many cultures from around the world sing the chorus of the song in their native tongues. Unknown to the crowd, Phish had put the backing music on loop and had snuck off the stage. After a little bit, Phish came out, but this time at the back of Madison Square Garden suspended in a giant hot dog. They proceeded to fly above the crowd where they then set down on the stage and proceeded to jam out the rest of the song into the final 10 second count down into 2011. It’s a memory I’ll cherish forever, and this was only the first. You can watch the full performance of Meatstick here.
Phish always does something special on Halloween or New Years, you can actually check out the list of their musical gags here.